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Topic: raisin starter? (Read 1980 times)

i've had a raisin starter with 1c raisins, 2T sugar, and warm water 3/4" over the top of the raisins mixed for 5 days and there is no yeast action going on visibly, only some of the raisins are puffy. did using sun maid raisins have a negative effect?

What is the starter going to be used for, bread & pizza? If so you should probably use flour to make your starter -- the yeast and bacteria come from the flour. While there are yeast and probably bacteria on raisins, the species you want for baking are already in the flour.

EDIT: sorry, I just saw the other thread by Mike / Essen1; it seems a lot of people are trying out using raisin-based starters to leaven their pizza doughs! I actually did use "raisin water" (water that raisins were soaking in for a few hours) to begin my sourdough starter, although every feeding after the first was regular filtered water. If I had to start again, I would just do the pineapple juice thing. Note that actual recipe for making the starter is partway down here: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/10901/pineapple-juice-solution-part-2

i've had a raisin starter with 1c raisins, 2T sugar, and warm water 3/4" over the top of the raisins mixed for 5 days and there is no yeast action going on visibly, only some of the raisins are puffy. did using sun maid raisins have a negative effect?

Jon I've made a sunmaid raisen starter and it works just fine. There is a thread Mike started on raisen starters sometime ago. Puffy is good. After the puffy stage you should strart seeing bubbles around the raisens and then lots of bubbles to follow. Your soaked raisens should have lots of activity by now. Once that happens you can drain the raisens out and mix flour in to a semi viscous consistency and you should have a starter in short order. Using it for bread and pizza will be just fine.